Schools Have Soap Dispensing Dilemma

Associated Press ^ | Dec. 17, 2003 | DAVID DISHNEAU

[wallcrawlr]

HAGERSTOWN, Md. - Frequent hand-washing to fight the spread of influenza is elementary, but it's a challenge at many schools, where soap dispensers have been removed from student bathrooms to curb vandalism.

Public schools aren't required to provide soap, according to the Maryland State Department of Education. Local administrators must find their own solutions to such problems, Vicki Taliaferro, a state school health services specialist, said.

"It becomes more of an administrative issue than a health issue," she said.

Taliaferro said she didn't know which or how many schools around the state have banned bathroom soap but she knew why: vandalism and pranks that include sliding across soap-slicked floors, filling toilets with suds and plugging commodes with wads of paper towels.

Some schools have installed sinks outside bathrooms, Taliaferro said. Others keep bottles of liquid soap or waterless anti-bacterial gel in classrooms to regulate students' use of the products.

Steve Lewis, principal of Fort Hill High School in Cumberland, told the Cumberland Times-News that his staff keeps tabs on students' soap use. "We have liquid soap dispensers in each classroom, and the students take the dispenser with them to the rest room, then return it with the permission slip when they come back to class," he said.

Melanie Pratt, school nurse at Beall Elementary in Frostburg, told The Associated Press she has installed hand soap dispensers in the health room, near the cafeteria entrance and at a sink outside a student bathroom. A company provides the dispensers and gel at no cost in exchange for empty printer cartridges and old cell phones that Pratt sends in for recycling.

"We've had a good response," she said Tuesday. "Maybe it's a novelty, but they seem very interested in using it."

The student bathrooms still have conventional soap, she said.

Similar dispensers are in place in all 12 classrooms at Greenbrier Elementary School in Boonsboro, Carol Mowen, a spokeswoman for Washington County Public Schools, said.

Greenbrier's bathrooms also have soap, she said. "This is just an added piece of protection that the Greenbrier PTA has funded."

Doris Ann Bittner, supervisor of the Allegany County school nurse program, said bathroom vandalism is nothing new. "With the flu, it's just that it's come to everyone's attention right now," she said.

With flu vaccine in tight supply across the country, public health officials are urging people to wash their hands frequently and thoroughly to fight the spread of germs.

"It's even more important now with the flu that we try to make sure that students have access to soap or sanitizer," Bittner said.

[wallcrawlr]

How long before we have a school bond levy or tax increase to pay for soap...?

[2banana]

Public schools aren't required to provide soap, according to the Maryland State Department of Education.

I love it...We can pass out condoms at schools but not soap!

[gridlock]

You gotta love the mindset where the problem with soap is that it winds up slicking up the floor or gumming up the toilet seats, but there is no problem at all with the children who are doing this. It's the soap's fault. Remove the soap and you have removed the problem.

[elli1]

Yup--after lecturing my junior high son yet again on the virtues of using soap when he washes his hands at school (and keeping his fingers out of his eyes, etc.), he told me that there is NO soap in the dispensers at school. (I live in central Wisconsin.)

Schools are freakin' disease factories & they have no soap. Sounds like the bathroom facilities in the green onion fields of a third world country, doesn't it?

[xzins]

During flu season put out little, hotel size bars of soap.

Or, if they abuse it, let them get flu, and then shut down the schools for a few days. The administrators can catch up on paperwork.

[SpinyNorman]

Public schools aren't required to provide soap, according to the Maryland State Department of Education. Local administrators must find their own solutions to such problems, Vicki Taliaferro, a state school health services specialist, said.

Then they should save some real money, and stop even more vandalism, simply by not providing toilet paper.

Sure is less of a hygiene issue!

Most people don't wash their hands anyway, and this includes Professors etc. at colleges!! No doubt they are liberal prima donnas that think their bodily wastes smell like roses and are germ free!

[freeangel]

There are waterless disinfectant hand products that come in "sample" sizes that will fit neatly into a pocket or a handbag for those that miss government provided soap.

[TYVets]

Vouchers

[Minnesoootan]

What are they going to do about bad kids bringing their own ,probably stolen,soap into the skool to make a mess?

sheesh,soap control sounds alot like gun control....

[MizzouTigerRepublican]

Have you seen most of these stinky hippie liberals? Most of them wouldn't even know what soap was if you hit them in the head with it. The teachers union is full of these types of liberals trying to destroy the minds of children.

[elli1]

"What are they going to do about bad kids bringing their own ,probably stolen,soap into the skool to make a mess? "

hehe--Maybe call in a flak-jacketed, guns-blazing SWAT team, cuff the little 'tards & unleash the Czechoslovakian soap-sniffing wolfdog?

[gridlock]

Schools better come out with a zero-tolerance policy on soap. If a kid comes into school with a sliver of soap underneath a fingernail, that should be a week's suspension right there.

Can't be too safe, after all. It could wind up making a slippery mess on the floor.

[ladylib]

Yeah, but under zero tolerance, they'll probably be considered a drug, and if a kid pulls one out of her purse, she'll probably be sent to a thug school for the rest of the year.

Why would any parent want to send their child to a school that doesn't provide the basic amenities? It's unfortunate that kids vandalize bathrooms, but -- hey, I've got a great idea! Let's put cameras in school bathrooms!

[ladylib]

In Detroit, teachers rationed out squares of toilet paper to the kids.

These stories (zero tolerance, no soap in school, just condoms)just make homeschooling seem more and more attractive to the rational parent.

[elli1]

"Public schools aren't required to provide soap, according to the Maryland State Department of Education."

But does one suppose that the Maryland State Health Department requires food service establishments to provide soap in their restrooms?

[Robert A Cook PE]

Gee........

And they wonder why, when MORALS and Self-responsibiltiy are forbidden by the liberals, when every act of criticism is prevented by "relativism" (nothing can be arbitrarily declared " wrong", therefore everything is "right"), and when truth is corrupted by political correctness . ....

Is it any wonder they can't wash their hands in school BECAUSE the schools can't keep soap containers filled?